The Dumb Zone FREE - Business Wednesday with George Gonzalez

Episode Date: July 3, 2025

Dan and Jake sit down with George Gonzalez (brand leader), and Travis Hill (field marketing partner) from Whataburger to learn what QSR means and more ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ���

This is Wednesday, Dan McDowell's special treat. Bonus content, learn to file your LLC. I can't think of better value for my 690. All right, well, we're officially starting. This is Business Wednesday. And I'm Dan Macowell. I'm Jay Kemp. And we have Jay Kemp here. We don't usually do them together. Isn't this exciting? It really is. You know I love business. I do know that and I know it's You Love Wednesday. So we're high atop my garage recording live to tape today and

we have a bunch of folks in here today from what a burger Wow and This of course coincides with our Whatever what a burger remote that we're doing July 8th Tuesday July 8th, and it will be at the tollway and El Dorado am I promoting this correctly you are and and it will be at the Tollway in El Dorado. Am I promoting this correctly? You are. And actually we've already talked about it. People probably have heard it, but if this is the first time you're hearing it, we have 75

car trays, which are exclusively available at this event with the Dumb Zone logo and the Whataburger logo. The 75th anniversary logo. Yeah, that's why we have 75 of them, right? Correct. Nice. We're so good at this. It's funny how that works.

Managing the brand. All right, the other voice that you have heard is Travis Hill. He is from Whataburger. He's kind of the guy we were brainstorming with to come up with this idea. And the reason we wanted to do a business Wednesday is because his boss, would I be able to call George, would you be the boss? Kind of? Yeah, we'll work together. But yes, of course.

You are the brand leader. And this is George Gonzalez. He's the brand leader. And we thought this would kind of be an interesting thing to talk about because to be the brand leader and we thought this would kind of be an interesting thing to talk about because To be the brand leader of like such a highly recognizable brand Seems interesting to me and man looking through some of the stuff that you've sent us I Just see so many mistakes. We've made along the way Jake as far as they're trying to set up their brand and then what we have done with our brand, if you want to call it that. But a lot of times during Business Wednesday we like to kind of figure out

like what is a CEO and how do you become one? Well, what is a brand leader and how to seriously like how do you think in high school do you know I'm gonna be the CEO of a corporation do you and you know definitely helps I think the main thing is your dad is the only okay well that that could help go to a certain school certain people we digress but yeah unless George your dad is he did he invent water burger no he did So, one of the things about a brand leader, if you think about this, Whataburger is over a thousand units strong now.

And we're spreading out throughout all the southeast. We're at a 17 state footprint now. And so we got a big footprint. So it's 11 of us we call brand leaders. Which in other QSRs it might be regionals, regional managers. And what's a QSR for those listening? The QSR is a quick service restaurant. Thank you. Yeah, quick service restaurant and and one of the things that that I like to say is as a brand leader I oversee 92

units but there's really no titles in my team. One of the things that we always that I like to say is as a brand leader, I oversee 92 units, but there's really no titles in my team. One of the things that we always talk about is being family. And that's what Whataburger is about. Whataburger is all about being family and making sure we treat each other with respect. Doesn't matter what position you're in. Are you from Texas?

I am from Texas, the Rio Grande Valley, actually. Is that important to be from Texas? No, you can be from anywhere and we're just looking for leadership, right? It's important to be the customer. Yeah. The consumer. But the good thing about it, Water Burger, is we were owned by the Dobsons at one point, right? And it's a Texas brand that was born in Corpus Christi back in 1950 and we still have the family members us are from Texas that are running the company so so where are you from I'm actually from the Rio Grande Valley okay very small town in the Rio Grande Valley being able to move around for the brand

I lived in Lubbock, Corpus Christi, Houston, Dallas. That was while working for Whataburger. Absolutely. Okay I'm talking about before like I want to know how you even get to work for Whataburger. What are you doing? What kind of a high school student are you? So an average CC student. Okay nothing big. Nothing big. It's all about the determination that you have, right, and just working hard. Do you remember that when you, do you have kids? I do have kids. I have my kids now. Okay, is it, do you have to kind of, you have to dig deep and remember because my wife will be like, they should be making A's. I'm like,

don't you remember? You don't necessarily have, but it's hard to tell your kids. I thought you were going to go with the, how do you get your kids to work hard when you've done well for yourself Well, that's the thing too. Yeah, because that's the one that like I want my kids to feel pressure like I did But I also don't want them to be scared that we're gonna lose the house Yeah, but you know it instills a work ethic gonna say, a little bit of fear is healthy. Yeah, I don't know. It's called nervous energy, I guess. Okay, so you're a regular student. Regular student in a little 1A school, graduating class of 33.

Okay. So at the QSR, one of the things I used to work for another QSR, and as a high school student I always wanted to just, first I just wanted to get a job to be responsible, right? So I started working at the QSR. Back in 2001, I had already worked for other companies for 10 years and then I joined Waterburger. I told everybody that's the best choice I ever made. And what were you doing during those 10 years prior at like just management and location to location?

Yeah, so basically I was just running. What'd you go to college for? I just wanted. Let's get to there. So high school average student, you go to college? High school average student, college. I didn't graduate college. I started working in the QSR, love what I did,

and looked at the pay rates that graduates were making and the pay rates that the QSR was paying. So I was like, you know what, it's not a bad gig to be a QSR leader. And I went into the QSR, started managing, I was wanting managing one unit. Can you say what restaurant? Yeah, it was Pizza Hut back in the days. Okay, so you started working there as just like server, busboy, whatever? Actually, I told everybody I started planting grass because we were just building a Pizza Hut where I first started and then I had already hired everybody so I told everybody, hey, I started out, I raised my hand, it's like you need somebody to plant your grass, I'll plant your grass.

Okay. That's how I started. As a college kid? Yes. And then you worked your way somehow, you end up becoming manager of that store? Correct. I became manager of that store. How long did that take?

About six months. Wow. Two years. That's, I feel like that's impressive. Walk in and take over your trap. Yeah, this is straight. No, as a kid who, I was a college kid working at a restaurant as well,

I don't know that it could have happened that quick. Yeah, well it's all about your work ethic, right? If you're driven to do that. Okay, well I definitely could not have. So it was better than working in the fields back in the days for me. Okay. Right? Because I come from a very humble beginning, it wasn't easy for us.

What do you mean the fields? We used to be migrants. What do you mean by the fields? We used to be migrants when I was young. And what does that entail? We would go to Michigan and work on the fields. Clean up some of those weeds and take out the weeds and all that good stuff. Age? At 17, 16. Okay, so. So you get 18, you're 18 years old, you're going to college and you get this concept

that you enjoy, you're good working with your hands. So that's what I did. So what is that, let me back up. We'll get back to Whataburger. So I'm a migrant and I'm gonna go work in Michigan. What is that, how does that happen? You have a family, yeah, go ahead, yeah. Yeah, so back in the days,

really you would go for the summer to have a summer job and make money for the family. That's in the Rio Grande Valley, a lot of us used to do that. Like a good friend of mine that I just met in the last couple years from the valley, he's from Idaho. And when he told me that I'm like, what? How does last couple years from the valley he's from Idaho and when

he told me that I'm like what how does our Mexican guy from the valley like how'd you he's like well my fan my grandfather moved up there for a migrant job and we just set up shop there and he's like so now there are 75 Mexicans in this part of Idaho that my family just set up there and they had moved prior to there to Michigan actually. Do you have to be Hispanic to be a migrant? I don't know, but if you live in South Texas, right? The word migrate just means moving, right?

You migrate. Okay, but it's kind of like a summer job and someone else kind of got you into it. They're like, oh, I know how you can get into this. Your family. My family. It's always a relative of the TCA, you can make more money here. Just Let's get started. And what kind of money do you make as a 17 year old? You have to go to Michigan for a summer. Yeah Back then it was nothing. I mean it was looking at minimum wage. Well, I'm interested. Yeah minimum wage, which is probably 10 hours

You clean fields by the acre you You get paid by the acre. Oh man. It's not an easy job. So when I see people working the watermelon fields and stuff like that, I used to do that as a teenager if you wanted extra cash, right? So all those humble beginnings help you become a better person as a leader wherever you're planted. Okay, yeah, no, it's got to make you appreciate...

Absolutely....air conditioning or whatever. Okay, yeah, no, it's gotta make you appreciate Absolutely. Air conditioning or whatever. No, that's incredible. Also, is it kind of like a, I don't want to be, were you 17 working around guys who are in their 30s or 40s and like, I don't wanna be 40 in this field, I wanna be? No, it was more of the, how how hard it was it wasn't easy.

Okay. You would meet a lot of people that were 40, 50 years old and they had their technique. Okay they thrived on it. They liked it. They liked it. And you didn't? Absolutely not.

Physically okay. All right so where are we now? We're jumping around 17. Pizza Hut. You're doing a migrate. We make manager and then after a decade there. Yeah, a decade there is no small time. What caused you to actually look around? Or did you get poached? No, well both right? But one of the things would as a peek when I used to work at pizza I was to go to water burger

After I get out of work at midnight over 24 hours. I loved water burger. I was a water burger fan before I joined them So one of the things about water brother really intrigued me is how much they paid I? Said It's like How much I was making this amount of money at Pizza Hut, but Whataburger was like double from what I heard. I was like, you know what? That might not be a bad gig to make a change

and try an iconic brand that's from Texas and that I'm a fan of. I've also heard, though, being a manager of a store can be a real beating because that's Somebody calls off and you can't fill that position now you're doing that, right? It can be a beating but it could also be rewarding because The more hours you spend that's your second family, right? I mean, obviously we have our immediate family, but Just being able to make an impact in somebody's life, it helps you become a better person and a better leader. And that's very rewarding when you hear that.

Did you, do you look back at that time and remember certain things that you learned or like, I made a huge mistake doing this and I never after that or like, can you give us anything from the Pizza Hut time? No, Pizza Hut is more, really one of the things that I learned from Pizza Hut is that you didn't have that quality of life with that concept. It's not, maybe because it's the way it was run and the times that we were there, but with Water Burger, we have a real good quality of life, even as we have 90 plus units. Well, when you say that concept, what does that mean?

As far as the Pizza Hut, it's totally, it's not different, it's the same thing about leadership. But what they believe then is we have different beliefs in Waterburg. For instance? Just the leadership, the way you treat people. Us here, we call each other family members. It really is a family atmosphere between whether I'm part of the support staff, I support restaurants, I support where they go on,

but George really does lead and make everyone feel like we're all part of a family. It's a lot of, you know, we were in a restaurant before we came here and, you know, George didn't mind getting behind the counter and helping. You know, he was doing whatever needed to be done in the restaurant just to help the family members. I mean, truthfully, Dan, that's what people say about our show at times. And it is because it's, you know because it's not a massive, massive, massive thing.

And we hear people say that. Which is interesting to say about Whataburger, though, just because it's a corporation. It is. Yeah. But for me, growing up here, HEB and Whataburger were places that I always heard were good to work for. And that continues now.

I hear that about the way they worked life balance, that sort of thing. So that's always to me been analogous or synonymous with Waterburger. Just a quick aside, so if you're a migrant, where do you sleep? Where do you live with family? Is it just a...

I just think you're living how many hours from home? Well, if you go when you go and work in places like like Michigan or women out there, the the farmer that we go work for normally has housing for us. OK. For they did back in the days. I don't know how it works now. Suck. But you're you're young and you're just, I wouldn't do it right now.

Right, okay. I just have a vision of you like in Yellowstone right now, like living on the ranch house. That's the way it was right there. Might sleep in a tent once in a while. Okay. But now we fast forward to whatever. I like that you're like Scorsese here Now he's back in the it's raining

It was crazy my first job was a pizza hut really yeah my first job I had to make pizzas and deliver pizza that pizza just strange parallels. Yeah So, okay, so Ten years you learn lessons there, you happen upon Whataburger, are you looking for other employment, you saw that you could make more money, you apply, you get the job. But as brand leader, that's, did you start as a brand leader? No. Okay.

What did you start as? The great thing about Whataburger is also we're always developing our own people. When you see some of the brand leaders, some of the market leaders, they might have started off as orange shirts. They might have started off as an employee, right? Is that what you call an employee? They're an orange shirt, that's what they wear. We all wear orange, right? Yeah. That's our color. Waterburger and orange is like who we are. Oh, I'm well aware. Yeah, we're all well aware.

But I started out as an employee, right? So when I went to Waterburger, I didn't start off as an operating partner for them. They actually brought me in as a manager so I can learn the system. Was a manager for about six months and got promoted to operating partner in Raymondville Texas. What's operating partner? Operating partner they take care of one unit. One unit? It would be the essential general manager so what most restaurants will call their GM we term them operating partners. And one unit will have a couple of different managers? Yeah, just like your shift minute. Yeah, right. Okay. They'll have like four managers and four team leaders in their team

Four managers, okay four managers and four team leaders But so when you started or did you start with the thought of I'm going to be working my way up Or did you say I'll just be a manager because this is better than being a manager at pizza No, I wanted to be an operating partner. Okay because I had heard how much money they got paid. Ah, okay. This is a common theme in the motivation. Sure, yeah. It's life, right?

Yeah, well, we're not a bad company to work with, where you want to make money, because we compensate our people very well. Okay. It's a blessing to all of us, and I'm pretty sure we can all... 100%? So you move up, try to speak your language. Operating partner, I'm thinking GM, though, right? You're in charge of one store then.

How long do you do that? And then is that different, too, because now you're managing managers instead of just managing. It is a little bit different because you're managing family members as well, right? And family members are the ones that just got started. They're in high school. They're 16 year olds, 17 year old kids. So it's a little bit different being an operating partner than being a market leader.

We still manage all those individuals, right? But it is, it is, you're dealing more with market leaders at our level now, and operating partners, obviously. But like I said, there's no titles. If you're in a restaurant, you own it. The experience that you're all gonna have, we all own it together, whether you're a support partner or a brand leader. I love it.

We'll seal that one. We all own it. Except for when it's a dividend. So learning that job. But even then, with Waterburger, even support partners, everybody, we all share in our bonuses and things like that. It's all intertwined together. So the work that we all do together

benefits everyone across the board inside of Water Burger. So learning the job of operating partner though, how difficult is that? And are you leaning on others within the company? It is difficult, however, we have a great training program. And that training program is a 13 week program that We take you through the whole entire process week one You're gonna be you might be on fries week one. You've already you might have done fries for

For three years already doesn't matter. We're still gonna treat We're still gonna treat you like if you're just learning everything That way make we make sure that you get every single training that needs to be done because you need all those tools in your belt when you become an operating partner. Okay, so every general manager or operating partner could walk into any Whataburger and do any job. Yes. Okay. Yes. So how long do you do that? Operating partner of one unit? For me it was, I started off in Raymondville, Texas and then I went to South Padre Island, Texas. Which is a resort location, right? So that's coveted? People want to go there?

Yeah, I just bet it's a lively location. It is during spring break and during the summer. Yeah. Yes summer. Yeah. Yes, sir. OK. That was a great experience because one is you get to deal with, we talk about volume as the money that we make in a restaurant.

When you're in a resort location, you might run low volume during the winter. And we used to have a lot of winter Texans what we call them back in the south people from other from other states come and visit us because it's not snowing out there is beautiful weather right so they go to the Rio Grande Valley so you get the winter Texans during the winter which slower not everybody goes to the island gets cold, but then in the summer you're running ten times more in sales. So you get to learn how to run a slow volume and how to run a high volume. I've always been fascinated by that.

Like where we used to work at the AAC, you know, there's a place down there, a couple of them, one of them is Hero, a sports bar, and I just don't know how you plan for 40% of your revenue being on a dozen nights. The playoff games and stuff it just seems like a... Got to make sure you're hitting on all cylinders on the nights that you're busy. Because I'm gonna have you pull yours up just a little bit just a little bit yeah or down here. Sorry little technical stuff there. Where were we? I was done.

Okay where are we in the story? Sorry. Those technical stuff there. I was done. Okay. Where are we in the story? How long was he an operating partner? Yeah, so operating partner about four years and then I became a market leader. Market leader when you oversee like anywhere from six to ten units as a market leader. As a market leader, did that for another three years. Now what's the challenges there? The challenges there is now you're multiplying yourself. So one of the things that you have to learn as an operating partner and go into market leader, you can use the same I

guess skill set. It's a little bit different because you gotta multiply yourself a little bit more and you can't be in every unit. So you don't wanna be that person that shows up at a unit and be their hero every time you show up. You gotta be able to develop your people to think a little bit different, right?

But you also have to develop yourself that what is my biggest opportunity in this unit and what is my strength and what is my weakness in this unit and kind of try to bring it all together. So it's kind of an, it is an art of leadership when it comes to QSR that you got to learn. It's funny. I mean, you, you, that's not the role that is usually called GM and other QSR as you said, but it sounds like being the GM of a sports team.

It's just, you have different, you have a collection of assets that have different things that they do well and not as well and bringing different amounts of revenue. That sounds like a GM. And your success is dependent upon other people doing their job correctly. 100%. Like them. Which is tough. So when you say I'm looking at different stores, what's an example of a, oh this is a strength

of this store, this is a weakness of this store, like is it just sales volume or? Because we measure our, you can measure the QSR a little bit different, right? You can measure them in hospitality, you can measure them in KPIs. What KPI am I going to measure? Is it labor, Is it food cost? Can you define that please? KPIs are the key indicators, right? So those are your indicators. Key performance indicators.

Sorry. So the key performance indicators, you look at them and say, okay, which one's working for me and which one's not? In this unit this unit might be a strength and these units might be a weakness for example maybe food cost uh your food cost should be an average of if it was 23 percent and now i'm running 27 percent in this store and i'm running 21 percent in this store so how do i get them to so what are they doing that this this unit is not doing and it might just be maybe they're not counting right, and maybe they're putting too much fortuneing on something, right?

So when you say food cost is, let's say, 23%, what does that mean? It's 20%, 30% of your profit. OK. You take a dollar and say, OK, it's 23 cents. OK, where in your career do you even learn something like that? Is it as a manager of a store? I mean, yeah, once you kind of get to management, you have to start learning the business of how

that runs. Because you have to know what's coming in, what's going out, you know, it's, there are, as he said, there's different ways that your restaurant is judged. At the end of the day, we all have to make a certain amount of profit in order to stay in business. And so once you kind of hit a manager, I mean even to a team lead, you know, it's like the, I guess the best trajectory you can talk about is you start as a family member, the orange shirt you talked about, then from there you're gonna go to a team lead, which is kind of you're running a shift. Like you're not a full manager yet, but you're kind of on the way to be a manager then you get to the manager and

you've got more responsibilities and then you get to the operating partner once you get to that operating partner you know I kid around with these guys all the time because you have to wear so many different hats you have to you have to know the accounting of your business you have to be a counselor because you're dealing with a staff of anywhere from 50 to 80 people. To your point earlier, or Jake, whoever said it, like if someone calls out, there are so many different things that these guys have to do to where it's not, they're not, you know, they're focused on the product that's coming out, but they have to know the business. You have to know the numbers. You have to know everything that's happening inside of your four

walls because the market leaders will all get their reports that they kind of look at and they start saying, okay, this unit's not doing as great on food cost. How do we help them? But then all of those come up to George and now George has to look at the 92 unit, you know, the whole region overall and those numbers and say, okay, these down here need some help. How do we get them the help? What do we need to do or what support do we deploy here to make sure that these

units are performing where they should be and could be? That's interesting. So, and also it seems very beneficial to come up and to have done all those things. But I would imagine, like any company, people will get hired from outside to all of a sudden, now here you are, I drop you in and you're running 90, or you're in charge of 90 stores or something. Right. Which I would think is also important because you want to have, you don't want to be so insulated that you never, you know, you want to know some tricks that these other, you

know, well what is it, QSRs are doing. These other chains, like I don't want to be left behind. So that's a great point. We try to do 80% internal and 20% external. So we also bring some brand leaders from other markets, from other concepts, whether it's McDonald's Starbucks or any other star any other QSR that they have the potential to lead with us so it's not all just everybody came into the farm and just just internal I would imagine consulting is part of that also no absolutely just bring in people Cohen

for a year of consulting on a certain brand project or something like that. So we do it in the corporate office. Yeah. And operations not as much, but in the corporate office we do bring some consultants, yes. Now who, let's say, within one store, then you get promoted your market leader.

Now that's four or five stores. When you are talking about, let's say there's a store that's four or five stores. When you are talking about, let's say there's a store that's not doing so well, does it all fall to the, not the manager, but the operating partner, I guess, that's the GM, but I guess some of that could be advertising, it could be location of a weird, you know. It's never marketing's fault. There's now, you know, traffic patterns, I remember my buddy at Grapevine Ford,

they were redoing 114 for a couple of years. And he said that almost put them out of business because you just couldn't have quick access to it. So that's one of the expertise that we have that we'll be able to identify where they're struggling. is it a traffic pattern? Then we bring in the big guns here and say hey listen help us out with this kind of... and if it's operational

but at the end of the day we all own it it's not just one person we're not gonna put the blame on all this he's not making sales so it's his fault is it's always we try to find a solution for that indicator is not working very well for us. How do we find a solution altogether to make us better? And that's where I'll come in, our expertise. Okay, so manager, operating partner, market leader, that's four or five.

How long do you do that and what's your next step? Yeah so back in the days it used to be, like I said our brand leaders like a regional and a market leader used to be area managers and then the next step was director of operations. You would run like anywhere from 30 to 45 units and that's back in, so I did the market leader for three years and then I moved up to director of operations which was to our beautiful Lubbock, Texas. I used to have all the Amarillo, Lubbock, San Angelo, Midland Odessa and that was an experience.

It's different from the valley. It was very different from the valley. Different culture obviously and also with the oil boom back in the days it was hard to keep it staffed but we were able to manage it. So is there ever a fear of, because not only, so now- But hold on, that's super interesting to me. I'm sorry. So just those old, I guess those old oil families, because like the new money, nobody wanted to work? Yeah, so what I encountered when I went to West Texas

is everybody wanted to work, but you've got to pay them $20 an hour. Because that's what the oil fields were paying, they were paying good money, right? Got it. And, but at the end of the day, we were able to overcome it because one of the things about Water Burger

is that we have all the support systems, right? We also have, and I'm a director in Lubbock, I came from the Rio Grande Valley, so the director from the Rio Grande Valley would send some people to help us out. And those people, they loved it there, so they stayed there. And that's the way we were able to overcome it.

And now that we're thriving in that market, so obviously it worked out for, but we also have, believe it or not, we have CEOs, and even the Dobson family would say, whatever you need, I'll get in my truck and I'll go help you out. That was everybody's attitude at Water Burger. It still is.

It still is. That's cool. Doesn't matter what title you have, we're gonna go out there and we're here to support each other. So you said, when you said getting promoted from market leader, it was a back in the-day thing that's not the same setup it is now? No we changed because we changed the concept so now instead of regional

directors which I as a director of operations I was promoted to regional director from actually I was in Houston I went back to Corpus so I was promoted to regional director from, actually I was in Houston, I went back to Corpus. So I was running Corpus in the Rio Grande Valley as a regional director. Then one of the things that changed about Water Burger, we wanted to get closer to the burger, what we call in leadership. That means that the regionals,

how do we get closer to what we're doing right now? And one of the things that we did as a brand is we had brand leaders. Now we have brand leaders that are representing. If I'm in Dallas, I might have a partner or next door neighbor that's running a franchisee here in Dallas, which is Whataburger and Mesquite. But as a brand leader, I support them as well.

They need something, they know that I'm here to help them out. They're franchisees they don't work for corporate but now they have that support from each other so as a brand is as a brand leader we oversee the whole entire market of Dallas the DFW area. Okay so you can buy a franchise? You can on the Whataburger, yes absolutely. Okay, I wasn't aware of that either. I don't know if I should have been. But maybe we'll be in the market someday. I know Jake would probably want to just broadcast from there every day.

Oh, there's no question. We can make that happen now if you want to do that now. You know how coaches really have good publicity about, oh my gosh, I mean if you want to do that now. You know how coaches really have good publicity about oh my gosh I mean if you're gonna marry a coach you might have to move town to town to town and your family seems like they're you seem like a coach you've moved all around everywhere you never know where you're gonna be three years from now. I did so it was like two years and that was my my the longest I stayed in anywhere so it was two years and once was my, the longest I stayed in anywhere.

So it was two years and once I got started going, like in West Texas, I went back to Corpus to the hometown of Waterburger. That was an experience that I've never had before because everybody in Corpus, Corpus Christi, Texas is where we were born, basically, Waterburger. Everybody knew the Dobson's, everybody there.

You go to HUB, everybody had already worked at Whataburger. So everybody had a story. And normally it's pretty good stories to listen to. So if you go to HUB and you're running the Corpus Christi market, you might get stuck there for about an hour. It's gotta be rewarding though. It was very rewarding. I got to meet a lot of great people from Corpus Christi.

Then went to Houston for two years. That's when we hit COVID. Very, very blessed with, even though COVID, I know we were talking about earlier, that really, we came out on top as a brand because we found a way that worked for us very well for our customers as well. So then from Houston, I went- What did you do? What do you feel was different?

Well, that's where Curveside, that's where DriveThru came in. I think we protected our employees very well. When you think about it, do you wear this? I came right after COVID. Yeah. So it was, I mean, we used everything that we had to use that made us better with food safety, with everything as far as employee relations. We took care of our employees.

OK, that had to be a wild time. It was, but it was good, it was rewarding as well, right? Because we all learned something different. I mean, we didn't know that we're going to be as good in curbside or online ordering. And that just pulled it out of us, right?

Yeah. Innovation born out of necessity. Yes. And they changed the laws because of that, right? Being able to pick up alcohol, things like that that just made sense. It took the pandemic to change it. Can you move your mic again? Just up or down? Yeah.

So, okay, Houston, and then you end up coming here with the same. So when you're in Houston, what is your title? That was COVID, though. I was still director of operations. Then I got promoted to regional director to Corpus Christi and the Rio Grande Valley, the whole entire south Texas. How many stores are under you there? There I had like 82. Okay, wow. So as a regional director, then we still hadn't changed to brand leaders.

So as a regional director, I had 82 units there. Then they moved me to Dallas and I had 145 stores here, but I didn't have Oklahoma back. So then we split up the two markets in Dallas where Michael Miller takes care of the West and I take care of the East. But I have most of the units in the Metroplex area. How many do you have now? 92. We're opening two more this year.

So we have 94 units. We go all the way from Dallas all the way to Oklahoma. What goes into opening a store? There's where it comes in. I just, even identifying that I wanna open one here, is that quite a bit, that's not all, that's not you, there's other people doing studies on. Yeah, that starts with our real estate team

and they'll determine, I'm sure, and I'm not gonna pretend to know what they do, but they do all sorts of research of, we think another store would work well here. They'll obviously consult with George and say, this is what we're planning on doing. But yeah, I mean the new ones get built from the ground up and then it's, you know, there's definitely a process like with any new business and we treat every new unit that opens as it's a brand new business for us. You know there's a lot of marketing that goes

behind it to let people know a Water Burger is opening. Water Burger openings are different in every city that we do. You know they can be full-fledged like big-time events. We did a we opened a store in Bonham a year ago two years ago. Yes. And we had people camping out in our drive through 36 hours before we ever opened because they wanted to be the first in line. You know they wanted to be and make sure because that was a huge deal like I think we're still the only 24-hour restaurant in Bonham. So it just it can be a it's a really fun it's no matter where it opens they're really fun to attend they're really fun to be there.

Because Water Burger, I mean, it's part of people's lives here in Texas, especially in the Metroplex. And when a new Water Burger opens, people are flocking to it. So, what I can think of is I lived in a very small town in southern Ohio, and very small town. And they got a McDonald's somehow. And we were the county seats And they got a McDonald's somehow. And we were the county seats and they got a McDonald's. And it was like, you would have thought, I don't know, that they were building a new stadium or, you know, new Jerry World or something.

When did the first Lovett one open? The first Lovett, it used to be a franchisee store actually. Okay. So it's been there for a long time? Yeah, it's been there for quite a while. Because I feel like in San Marcos, I don't know that we had one when I was there, and I know it has one now, and it was a big deal. I'm trying to do this so you don't have to stop talking, but okay, I'll go ahead. Yes, I just need you to move it so that you're not breathing into it.

Okay, thanks. So that's the main thing, yeah. Does it. Yeah. Um, it didn't seem like that was it. It seemed like. Let me ask you this. This is a total, what do you know about this?

I used to always, or I'm under the understanding, from hearing this and that growing up, that McDonald's would spend millions of dollars scouting out locations, figuring out where to put the traffic patterns, everything. I think I should put a McDonald's here. And Burger King would just pick somewhere near a McDonald's. Do you know anything about that? No, but I'm pretty sure that like we build a water burger and for all of a sudden it's

just Chick-fil-A's right next to us. So they do, I'm pretty sure they wanna stay close to us, but here in Texas, but overall, obviously, Water Burger, by the time you see a Water Burger, we already picked it two years ago. Actually, the one on 423 and 380, that was already picked four years ago. So the decisions we make today are probably for five years down the road and and so when I heard that

you were the brand leader I thought that meant like managing I don't know just a promotional stuff or you, do you know? But brand leader means actually you're overseeing all of these stores in every aspect that goes into it. Every aspect, every, yeah, from the ground up. Even if you think about it, as we're building more stores, we're gonna open one on 121 and here in Dallas in Coit. Well, is it Plano or is it Frisco?

It's Frisco, isn't it Shafi? Frisco? That's going to be in Frisco. And then Denison, Texas is going to have a second unit that we're going to build on 75. So it's pretty, what I do is from everything that happens at water burger We're all hold accountable for it You know we all have the privilege to lead the individuals that are running that so and George is involved in the promotions

I mean everything that we do it's got to run through him. You know so We bring the concepts we bring the marketing ideas We bring kind of what we want to do and we run it by him and he ultimately has to sign off on everything that we do. What was the thing you were talking about earlier today that they share online and we were surprised about that? You're just the brand kit being online for use basically. It's very interesting but I know of some other companies that do it but you know you can make a video with it.

Like the public can just find your brand kit online. Yeah. What's the thought behind that? You'd have to ask our media people about that. OK, well I'm asking their boss. Yeah, well the thing is that as a brand leader, we have all these resources. And some of them are doing something different.

So I get to see everything that happens behind the scenes. However, our main thing is how do we impact the customer and in the restaurant, right? In the restaurant. And the great thing about our brand, or Whataburger, is that we have all the resources that other might not have. Because when I was a pizza head,

I never had a marketing person, business partner, that was gonna help me like that. And that's one of the things that I appreciate about this brand, that from human resources, to staffing your units, to marketing, and training department, we have all these resources that come together and we're just a phone call away. You know, every brand leader has a team of

support functions that are gonna help them out. So it makes our job a lot easier. And you had shared with us a design and copy overview like a document and I just thought it was just incredibly detailed on what really goes into the thought on the Whataburger logo comprised of two elements, the flying W and the channel letters and just the exact shade of orange that you are allowed to use.

Just to, like I said, kind of leading into this, like the brand is seared into your brain. You know, I would think a baby could recognize it. Possibly, right? One of the early things. You know Whataburger Orange when you see it. Yeah. Is it PM165, orange color?

Or is it something like that, 165, I think. How's that different from the Cleveland Browns? Is that much different? Yeah, I think Cleveland Browns is a little bit more like burnt orange I guess. Okay. Oh that's right, burnt orange, we got that too. Yeah, burnt orange is a little bit different here in Texas. I think the stuff they do, the collaboration stuff with the brand stuff is so cool. I got the Chubbies one, I got the Wrangler one. It's really cool stuff. Well I love the car tray that we're going to be giving away. That's a very cool thing that you're allowing us to do with you. That was fun to work on.

I'm not gonna lie. That was a, you know, that stemmed out of a meeting. So when we come into partnerships, like with you guys, we don't want to do just off the shelf things. You know, anyone can hand out a pen, anyone can hand out something. We want to do something that's going to be memorable. Like, Water Burger, especially someone like me who grew up here, there's an emotional connection to it. Like, when you go to a Water Burger, I went with my family, you know, Sundays it was a big thing for us to go to Water water burger, I went with my family, you know, Sundays it was a big thing for us to go to water burger. We want to bring that back. We're trying to create that emotional bond and we're trying to create memorable experiences for people.

And you know, when we sat down and we talked and you know, one of the first questions I asked is what's something that your listeners would want. Anyone can do different things. And when Jake brought up the car trays, and especially being our 75th anniversary, it's got kind of a retro feel. The car trays, car hops, and things like that from when, and it just, it was something that we've never done. I don't know that anyone else has kind of done it.

No. And so that, things like that get me excited. It gets our team excited. And it's something that's really you know, I tell George all the time, like the minute we're not having fun anymore, we need to find something to do something else to do. Man, I imagine gearing up for that 75th has been for a few years now. Yeah, it's been a lot of meetings, lots of planning, you know, our our official birthday is August 8th. That's National Water Burger Day. It's a thing. It's a real thing is National

Water Burger Day. How does that get instituted? I don't know all the ins and outs of how they got it done, but our corporate team, like they followed through all the procedures you have to submit. Like it's a real thing that takes a lot of effort to get it nationally recognized. And they had been working on it for a really long time. And I think it was two years ago maybe that it became August 8th is now National Water Burger Day. So who came up with the idea of the car tray?

It was Jake. Yes. Jake uses, he was talking about he uses these car trays and I have to laugh because whenever I send ideas into our merchandising team I you know I never know what they're gonna say back to me of like are you crazy no or this is look this looks great you know it's another thing water burger does extremely well as our merchandise yeah so I've been using one for a little over like ten years or so. Look at it in all its glory right there with the Water Burger 75th logo.

I don't recall. I love it. We were just talking about eating in our car at one point on the air and a guy, he found the tweet recently, sent me, he's like, hey, you should check this out. When I bought one then, and I've had one ever since then, I feel like Amazon should have paid me

for as many of them as we've sold. I can promise you that I have eaten more water burger off of a car tray than any human being breathing right now. I promise you that. It's the food I've eaten the most off the tray. I used to have like a job in Plano and one in South Dallas and East Dallas and Denton. And I was just in my car driving from job to job to job like all the time. And so I was just in my car driving from job to job to job, like all the time. And so I was eating in my car a lot, and I like sauces, I like gravy, I like spicy ketchup.

Where am I gonna put that in my car? Nowhere. Now I have a tray. And I can spread it all out, and I can join my water burger on the tray. And then now that I'm married, I can throw all that away before I get home and pretend to eat whatever my wife made for dinner. What's so great about that and what Trev is telling me about it is and I

gotta say this because our new CEO Debbie Stroud she allows us to go out there and do different things and I think that's pretty awesome from a very strong brand and for a CEO to allow us to do those kinds of things, I think it's pretty neat. I'm honored to be a part of it. You might be onto something though. No, it's gonna be great. Off topic and then we could end with promoting

that event again, but it's kind of topic, especially with the Whataburger brand. Do you guys know what Watson Burger is? Do you? Okay, so this, I'll just tell you my experience. I saw it in Denison, Texas. Yeah, my experience was many, many years ago, it might have been when we were driving back and forth from Ohio to here

I've happened upon a place That looked exactly like what a burger Stripes all that it was called Watson burger. I remember talking about it on the ticket But I'm talking about 20 years ago now, so I don't even know if it still exists I did but I saw it somewhere, is it high up 35? Is it some, so you know what I'm talking about. Yeah, because we're gonna build a water burger in Denison, Texas, the second one.

We have one downtown, and we're gonna do one on 75. And I passed through there, it was like, there was a building called, had a Watson Burger. I don't know if they're open or not, but. Okay, I feel like it was somebody, it was like McDowell's on the movie Coming to America. They have a Big Mick, not a Big Mac. It looked almost exactly like it.

So I didn't know if this was like a little thorn in Whataburger's side. Not at all. No, no, no. I didn't know how it existed. I bet it probably was. You guys just weren't there. Somewhere, yeah, somewhere along the line. They didn't have how it existed yet. I bet it probably was. You guys just weren't there. Somewhere, yeah.

Somewhere along the line. Then you have the orange and white. Maybe that one's closed. It was black and. It was black. OK, I don't remember the color. It was a long time ago, so I don't even know if my memory was playing tricks on me.

But the fact that you have heard of it validates that my memory is not totally there. We stand behind the product we serve and there's people have choices they can make but we know that you know we feel like our product is the best one out there. Yeah no, everybody knows what a burger is. What a burger is fresh. The stuff yeah. Do you know our meat has never been frozen?

Is that right? We serve fresh meat every customer at water burger does not get a frozen patty what's always gonna be fresh what's the farthest away what a burger from probably Las Vegas Vegas Las Vegas I didn't know how to park East and West well I mean if you talk about furthest away from kind of the footprint it would be Las Vegas they you know we we've got a franchisee that opened up a water burger on the strip.

So that's probably the furthest away from, I mean, we have Arizona. We have some that are still going out west. But we're concentrating right now, at least this year, last couple years we've been moving east, South Carolina, North Carolina. Patty got them in Missouri. Oh, that's right.

What do we have, like 28 in Missouri? I have to make it look, yeah, but we've got a pretty famous franchisee. So Pat Mahomes bought a few of them? Yeah. He's a franchisee. Just because he loves Whataburger and he needed them near his house?

It was the best ketchup ever. That's a great bid. Boy, that's free advertising, right? Or maybe it was part of the deal of getting the franchise. I don't know. Are you privy to that? No, we're not in those kinds of situations. And you wouldn't tell me if you were, right? But I gotta ask. Well, this is cool, man. Yeah, we're doing that show the 8th.

July 8th. The Tollway and El Dorado like 11 to 2 so there's four stores in Frisco I think there's five five four does that mean when a new one opens is this one new this one's been there a while okay this isn't the one we met at no no that's a that's a newest one. Yeah, where was that one El Dorado and koi? Okay? Quit okay, don't argue guys These two I just wondered like four stores Let's say there's four in Frisco and you're gonna open a new one

the other four managers like ah man, I'm working on my sales here now they open a new like this is a Like do you do you have like rules on that if somebody was buying a franchise or you can't put it this close to this one or Yeah, so so as far as us so the franchise that we're growing is normally outside of Texas but for our For our market leaders and operating partners, we get compensated through the sales, obviously, and that we're doing.

And there's some bonus structure there. However, we take care of everybody. So if you do have new unit impact, what we call, we take care of the one that got impacted. Okay. And if you're opening a brand new water burger, you're gonna get a higher percentage of sales than the one that's already existing there.

Okay. So it's a win-win for all of us. And I think it makes us better as well. But I think the main thing is that we all understand that we're gonna take care of our community a lot better by having more water burgers than having one and Trying to spread out all the way to another location Will Dak be able to ever bring us a Super Bowl? I believe he will I'm a Cowboy fan. So for me is we always we always have a chance

Okay. Well, do you have big confidence in Marty Schottenheimer's son? I do. What gives you that? I think he's going to do good. Me too. He knows. Well, basically his dad was a coach and a very successful coach and I think he has a lot of that leadership skill that has that hat.

Okay, it just took the rest of the league 50 years to figure that out or? George got to spend some. I'm more of the negative side of it. All right, yeah, we can be negative, but. Let's get to the brass tacks. We're gonna be optimistic. He got to spend some time with Shoddy a few weeks ago.

So he, you know. And everyone I've met who has spent time with Shoddy walks away saying this is the guy. Yeah. Media members and whatnot, but go ahead. What would you have to charge, let's say you take the normal price, what is it to keto with cheese right now, like 379 maybe?

What would you have to charge to sell that to me at 10 p.m.? So, could I do it for five, six seventy nine? Is there a price at like is there a price at which we could buy breakfast items before 11 or after 11 for an upcharge? We need to create a structure here. What is the? Well it's 11 to 11, everyone else is 10.30.

Everyone else in the QSR space is 1030 for breakfast cutoff Waterburgers 11, which is nice, but it also makes me think like oh But my question was going to be what is it? Why is that? It's because of the equipment Let me ask the guy This capacity right the capacity and also the food safety So a lot of the concepts that are giving you maybe earlier is because they're using microwaves they're not using the real thing. Well they're not giving you earlier that's what I'm saying is that that water burger is the only one that starts at night because it's 24 hours

right ah okay so it's 11 to 11 and you're still not happy this guy's great I'm just saying you know there are how many times have we set in that drive through at 10.35? Getting ready to. This is embarrassing. I'm gonna be here for half an hour, but you do it. So you do it and you get the freshest of taquitos. I'm gonna give you a solution for that. Download the app, go in there, put this.

Schedule a pickup too? Schedule a pickup. That way you don't have to be on drive through waiting. And if we see it, you might wanna call and say, hey, is there any way you can make it? You know what I did yesterday with that app? I got a Monterey Jack on a taquito. Who's doing that?

Yeah. You're not asking somebody for that, but on the app you're like, what? I was having a conversation. Why not? I was having a conversation this morning about putting Pico de Gallo on taquitos. It's really good.

You know how hard that is in the app? One touch. You can put pico de gallo on anything you want. You can also have water break without a bun if you're on a diet. I did see that option on there. We'll give it to you in a nice looking platter and you can put extra extra veggies. Sure. That was my goal too right now that I try to lose a little bit of weight. It's like you know what if you still have a water burger and I lost 50 pounds just eating a water burger really or not.

Okay. Knowing how to eat. Just like you like it. Just like you like it. We'll make it any way you want. All right any final closing remarks that you guys want to make? No. We'll make it any way you want. All right, any final closing remarks that you guys wanna make? No, we're- We appreciate the- Yeah, we're extremely happy to have a partnership with you guys. We're looking forward to the event on July 8th.

We're excited to have you all there. What do you guys got going on for August 8th? That hasn't come out yet. It will very shortly. She whipped around, shut up. This was going to be the announcement. This was going to be the part where we- Well, I was gonna say, George can talk about what's coming out on July 1st. July 1st we have the water freshers. Have you all tried those out? No, he was

telling us about the drinks. Let's craft a lemonade and a prickly pear raspberry lemonade. It's an amazing product. So if you want a sample just let us know and we'll be glad to bring you some over here. We can send some to the studio for you guys. Absolutely. When's the last time you paid for a shirt? For a Whataburger shirt? No, just a shirt. Yeah, because I just figured you always wear Whataburger gear.

I work for a great brand to take care of us. I know, but I'm saying that. It must be great. I'll bet your closet is just full of water burger stuff. I'm a water burger fanatic, even though I enjoy my job that I do, because you get to bless other people and at the same time work for a great company. He was a fan before he.

I was a fan. But I'm saying, he's like Cuban. Mark Cuban was sitting in the 300s at Mavericks games. I think you're going to hear that from more people than not who work in our brand is that they were a fan before they started working here and I I would have never ever thought I was gonna be working in the QSR industry three years ago four years ago and then when I started talking to the recruiter about it it I couldn't say yes fast

enough. And I know you don't say like I'm your boss and we work together and all this kind of stuff but would you wish Travis was wearing an orange watch like you because uh he's not he's just wearing a black watch uh well maybe unless that's like a sign of dominance yeah maybe there can be no only one oh okay we can take care of the band it's just it's just a band as always but Sarah's got got the orange thing in her hair and it's like we're all color coordinating everything here. You would love working there bro. Oh man. You wear orange socks and... I love it. Well on the 8th we can put you in the drive-thru.

We can see how well you can do that. Let's go. Let me do any... whatever you want me to do I'll do. Of course I'm saying that and I'd probably need to clear that We'll make it happen I Love it. All right. This is a pinnacle of my career This partnership. Well, thanks a lot guys. We'll see you July 8th. Thanks for having us. Thank you I'm Thank you.